The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device which can be used appropriately as a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device having, e.g., a MISFET and a nonvolatile memory cell.
Examples of a technique which improves the characteristics of a MISFET includes a SMT (Stress Memorization Technique). The SMT is a technique which applies a stress to a channel from over a gate electrode to cause the crystal in the channel to strain and improve the mobility of carriers in the channel.
For example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-205951 (Patent Document 1), a solid-stage image sensing device is disclosed in which a first stress liner film (81) is formed so as to cover only an NMOS transistor (50N) from thereabove in a peripheral circuit portion (15), while a second stress liner film (82) is formed so as to cover only a PMOS transistor (52P) from thereabove (see [0036] to [0039], and FIG. 2). By thus not forming a stress liner film over a pixel portion (13), the occurrence of noise resulting from the stress liner film is suppressed.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2009-32962 (Patent Document 2), it is disclosed that, with regard to the relationship between a SMT film and the activation rate of B (boron) during anneal, hydrogen in a silicon nitride film reduces the activation rate of B (see [0006] and [0007]). Additionally, a technique is also disclosed which provides a stressor film (24) in an n-type MOS transistor region (A) and does not provide the stressor film (24) in p-type MOS transistor regions (B and C) to thus improve the current driving ability of the n-type MOS transistor without degrading the current driving ability of the p-type MOS transistor (see [0024] to [0026], [0034], [0035], FIG. 1, and the like).
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2009-252841 (Patent Document 3), it is disclosed that the diffusion of hydrogen into the gate insulating film of a transistor degrades the reliability of a device. Additionally, a technique is also disclosed which suppresses the diffusion of hydrogen atoms from an interlayer insulating film into a memory cell to improve the reliability of the operation of the memory cell.
Note that, in the present section, the parenthesized numbers are the reference numerals and the like shown in the documents.